Di and Cam

Our trip to New York was special as we met Ron, Barb, Scott, Heather, Lara and Mike for five days to celebrate Ron's 60th birthday. Being our first trip to NYC we were suitably impressed by the sky line on our yellow cab ride into Manhattan:

We met Barb, Ron and Scott in Central Park soon after checking into our hotel room (we stayed at the Salisbury Hotel and thoroughly recommend it). After a quick catch up in the sun we decided to hire bikes and we soon gained an appreciation of the size of the park (it has a lake and a zoo!). Our one hour bike hire passed quickly but we were pleased to have seen the turn-of-the-century carousel, the impressive design of the Guggenheim museum and many other landmarks.

Heather, Lara and Mike's arrival was delayed until 3am, so after gracing the hotel with my pajama-clad presence and letting them into their room, that was the end of our first day!

With different priorities for the trip, ranging from the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island immigration museum to shopping for a pair of Manolo Blahniks, we split up for most of the time to make the most of the sightseeing and shopping that New York had to offer.

Our compulsory stops...

The Empire State Building:

Pizza in Little Italy and handbags on Canal Street:

The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Brooklyn Bridge:

Times Square:

The Macy's 4th of July fireworks display was incredible, as was the size of the crowd!

We saw in Ron's birthday in style with a champagne breakfast in the hotel before heading our separate ways for the day (as there was still plenty of shoe shopping to be done!). We met back at the hotel for a pre-dinner drink and our delicious Italian dinner was followed by excellent jazz at the Village Vanguard and a tired taxi ride back to the hotel a very full day - particularly for the old man! )

Barb and Ron were first to leave on their trek back to New Zealand the following morning, then Heather, Lara, Mike, Cam and I left Scott and headed out to JFK airport together to make our separate ways home. This last photo is of Scott and Cam before we left the hotel:

Hope you guys enjoy the photos (a comment or two would be lovely, just to prove that you got to the bottom of the page!)

Diana and Cam